Lights Will Guide You Home
by WonderingWhileWandering
Summary: Neville is feeling emotional and upset after visiting his parents. He comes home to Luna and their house with the brightly-lit windows and lets her fix his broken heart. / Nuna fluff / Sort of inspired by Coldplay's "Fix You" /


**A/N:** _So it's been a while... but I'm back! This is another Nuna fic... just a little one-shot that came to mind and is sort of inspired by_ Coldplay's _song "Fix You". I really like_ Coldplay _, and this is one of my favourite songs by them, so I'm glad that I could kind of incorporate it into a story about one of my OTPs, especially because it focuses on part of Neville's story that I love. Anyway, on with the story! Please feel free to review or PM and let me know what you think!_

 **I do not own** ** _Harry Potter._**

 **Lights Will Guide You Home**

"Thanks, Mum." Neville smiled down at the crumpled gum wrapper that had been quietly pressed into his hand. Meeting the tired, far-away gaze of his mother's eyes made his own brim with tears that he quickly blinked away. He pulled her into a gentle hug, his strong arms wrapped around her thin shoulders, wishing that he could remember a time when she had once been bigger and stronger than him, and held him in her arms.

Stepping back, he moved over to his father's bedside and rested a hand on his arm. Frank's eyes fluttered open, looking bewildered. A confused smile spread across his face, but Neville saw no real recognition in his expression, and just murmured his goodbyes before turning away, not trusting himself to disguise his emotions. Looking around for his mother, he found her at the window at the end of the ward, humming to herself and drawing invisible patterns on the pane with her finger. Swallowing hard, he touched her shoulder. "I have to go now, Mum."

Facing him, Alice smiled blankly, staring up into her son's face. Neville managed a smile in return. "But I'll come back soon yeah? Next Sunday, like always." Digging his hand into his coat pocket, he produced a small packet of Droobles gum and handed it to Alice. Her delicate fingers wrapped around the present and picked absent-mindedly at the wrapping as she wandered back to her bed, still humming a tune that Neville couldn't identify.

He watched her drift away from him, sitting down on the crisp, white sheets of her bed, staring at an empty space on the wall as her fingers continued to play with the Honeydukes bag full of sweets. Neville felt a muscle tense in his jaw as he fought back tears, and quickly brushing the back of his hand across his eyes, he slipped out of the ward, nodding to a familiar healer as they passed each other in the corridor.

He stepped out of the disguised hospital onto the sun-warmed pavement, the early evening air not yet cool after the long, hot day. Neville walked a few yards down the road before rounding a corner into a quiet alley where the sudden disappearance of a pedestrian wouldn't be so easily noticed. With a sigh, he glanced around to make sure he was alone, then closed his eyes, picturing the little cottage on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, the thatched roof hanging low over the front windows like eyebrows, flowers and leaves rambling across the whitewashed walls, framing the door, and popping up in clusters at the base of every bush and tree and along the edge of the tiny patch of lawn. The windows glowing with a soft, golden light, the brightly-coloured curtains always left flung open until the last of the sunlight had disappeared. A smile flickered on his lips at this inviting image, and with a small pop he vanished.

Neville took a gulp of fresh air, a little cooler and much clearer than that in London, now a couple of hundred miles north of where he'd stood moments before. He stayed for a minute in the street, gazing at his little home, exactly as he'd pictured it before disapparating. The only difference was the graceful figure of his wife, standing on the path with her back to him, her wand raised with a silvery mist of water trailing from its tip as she tended to the dirigible plums growing amongst the climbing roses. Two of the orange orbs hung from her earlobes, and Neville spotted that she'd tucked one of the yellow roses into her fair hair to match her loose, summer dress, swaying every so slightly with the movement of her hips as she hummed peacefully to herself.

With a smile tinged with an element of sadness, he moved towards the low, wooden garden gate, but Luna seemed to feel his presence before it even creaked open. Turning around, her wide blue eyes lit up with pleasure. "Oh, hello Neville!" The water dissipated from her wand, and she reached her hand out tenderly. As he drew near enough, he grasped her small hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze before pulling her into an embrace, wrapping his arms around her waist and momentarily lifting her up, her bare feet leaving the damp paving stones as she wrapped her arms around his neck, sensing his sadness as she did every Sunday evening.

His two-day-old stubble brushed against her ear as he held her close for a few moments. Lowering her gently back down, he gave her a smile, despite the hint of tears in his eyes. "Hi Luna," he felt her take his hand again. "Thanks for starting on the garden."

They'd planted the garden themselves when they first moved in two years ago, filling it with all kinds of interesting plants, both magical and muggle. Luna brought in shrubs and vines that produced flowers which she insisted would repel nargles and wrackspurts, and leaves that apparently attracted glumbumbles, though Neville had yet to spot any. He himself had planted cuttings of rare and exotic plants from his greenhouses at Hogwarts to better understand them. It had become part of their daily routine to water the array of vegetation together, tending to the plants and discussing the day's events.

"That's alright," Luna smiled up at him, "I left the Mimbulus Mimbletonia and the Wiggentree for you though." Her hand still gripping his, she led him over to the small, white bench under the living room window and sat down, patting the seat next to her. As he sat down with a quiet sigh, she pulled her legs up and crossed them underneath her, letting her dress drape over her knees and one of her bare feet press gently against his thigh as he settled next to her.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few long moments, lost in their own thoughts, Luna waiting for her husband to speak about his visit to St. Mungo's in his own time. "I gave them your love," he started, "told them that you'd come with me soon."

"Oh good! I like visiting with your parents! I should have liked to come with you today, but I had to finish writing that article on the new discoveries about hinkypunks before paper goes to press tomorrow." Luna's career as a magizoologist writer was taking off well, and Neville smiled proudly, giving her hand a squeeze.

"I know, Love. I told them how well your work is going and how much you wished you could have come with me." He lapsed into silence and Luna rested her head on his broad shoulder, her hand on his knee. "Did you give your Mum the sweets?" she queried, her fingers smoothing a crease in his trousers.

"Yeah, she seemed... happy with them... I guess. It's hard to tell. But they're always finished when I go each week, so I suppose she must like them." He slipped his hand into his pocket, remembering his mother's gift. "She always keeps one of the wrappers for me though."

Luna took it gently from him. "That's nice... We haven't had a green one in a while." She unrumpled it and laid it out flat on his palm. "We can put it in the box with all the others when we go inside." The small, carved, wooden box sat in the middle of the mantelpiece, charmed to hold much more than it looked like it should. Inside was every gum wrapper that Neville's mother had given him over the years. Before they were married, Luna had found them all in a drawer in his room, and come up with the idea of the enchanted box to make sure that he would always have somewhere to put the little squares of brightly-coloured paper.

Neville nodded and carefully tucked it back into his pocket for safe-keeping. "I wish you could have known them properly," he swallowed the lump in his throat, "I wish I could have..." his hand gripped hers. "I thought it would get easier the more I visited. That I'd get used to talking to them without a reply and seeing them look right through me without really knowing who I am..."

Luna turned towards him and wrapped her arm around his middle, holding onto him as she tilted her head to look up at his face. His arm moved to drape over her shoulders and pull her closer, her pale hair catching between his fingers. "I think they still love you though," she mused, "even if they don't know that you're their son, you still visit them every week, and talk to them about your life, and bring them sweets and flowers. I've been there with you. You make them smile. And you're kind, and gentle, and you're you, so they must love you." She said all of this as though it was quite simple and undisputable.

The tears that he'd been holding back since he was in the ward now escaped. "But I've tried so hard to have some kind of relationship with them! I've gone to see them regularly for as long as I can remember, but I've never been their son, I've just been a visitor. Nothing's changed from when I was sixteen, or six!" The salty droplets left tracks down his cheeks, catching in the stubble on his chin.

Luna sat up next to him, shifting to kneel on the bench to better embrace him. Holding him close, she felt him bury his face against her shoulder. "You've changed though. Your life's changed, so your stories have changed. I've seen how much they like listening to you speak, and you always have something new to tell them, about your students, your plants, me..." She ran a gentle hand through his hair soothingly as she spoke. "You got to tell them about how you helped to defeat Voldemort, and before that about Dumbledore's Army. Your life changes, so theirs does too, because you always have something new to share with them. And even if they can't say it, I think they really love you, and are really proud of you Neville... because I know that I am."

He sniffed and pulled back, wiping his eyes. "You're honestly amazing, Luna... I'm sorry... I don't know why this is all upsetting me so much tonight. I'm just glad that you're here when I get home. You're like a beacon of light for me... you really are." He smiled for a moment. "You know, when I picture home before I apparate here, the thing I see most clearly is the light from the windows. Not the garden, or the street. I see the windows full of light because you refuse to close the curtains until the sun is completely gone. And I don't know why, but I really love that." He let out a long sigh. "I know that I always have that to look forward to after the hospital... Seeing them like that each week... I mean I want to see them... I want to visit them... but it breaks my heart every time..."

"But seeing them every week also fixes you." Luna rested her hand firmly on the left side of his chest, her fingertips grazing his collar-bone.

"You fix me."

She shook her head, smiling slightly. "We fix each other." Leaning in, she caught his lips with her own for a long moment before pulling away and standing up in a fluid motion. She held out her hand. "Let's go add the new wrapper to the box."

He grasped her fingers in his and stood up, realising that the sky had grown dark in the time they had spent talking. With the golden light spilling out of the windows of their home he hadn't even noticed. But now, with her hand wrapped in his, and her soft hair brushing against his skin in the gentle breeze, and the flowers a chorus of sweet scents, he felt warm right down to his bones. He felt whole. He looked forward to seeing his parents the following week. And telling them he loved them. And knowing that he was loved.


End file.
